You can buy this set of rare Snafu cartoons on Amazon. This is the best set there is. All the cartoons are in prime shape and unlike the older Snafu sets, the films are not cropped. The whole image is sharp and full screen. All the cartoons are from the top animators and directors of the mid 40s - when animation was at its height. A killer collection.

There is a really cool UPA cartoon on here too.

NO DVNR!! They look just like the films themselves. better restoration than the actual Warner Bros. Looney Tunes sets.

34 comments:

Couldn't have said it any better myself. All the cartoons look fantastic. I was even watching a bunch of old Snafus on that same Thunderbean DVD yesterday. Timeless and brilliant material to study from. Do you think it would be possible to draw something like that Nazi soldier in a program like Harmony and get the same kinds of results, motion and animation wise?

Awesome post as usual. I'll have to pick up that DVD, I'm a huge fan of propaganda art. I even bought that book The Fine Art of Propaganda that Mr. Worth recommended on ASIFA.

There are a bunch of random video sites out there that have WB cartoons that were recorded on VHS straight from TV broadcasts, which still look better than the DVNR'd stuff, despite the VHS grain. Here's a side by side comparison. YouTube usually only has DVD rips.

WB animation at it's peak. Good point about the individual frames. That's often the case in the classic Warners cartoons. Their animation and character acting was so strong you coulnd't notice it unless you looked at the stills. The Freleng cartoons were usually the only ones where it showed. Clampett's were composed and paced in a way that kept your eyes way too busy to see such rough spots.

Hard to blame the animators, though. Seems like it might have been in the cell inking process where the drawings got a bit loose. With Scribner animating for Clampett, you could have sent it off to the hacks that redrew those color Fleischer cartoons in the 70s and it would even have stood up to that fairly well.

They've recently become public domain and if you want to just check out a few just search snafu. The quality is amazing if you download the Divx version and its free, and for a poor artist like me thats a good deal.

I don't believe DVNR was used on the LT Golden Collections since volume 2.

A little bit slipped through in Volume 3. It's evident in The Last Hungry Cat for example.

Yeah, that's Rod Scribner's animation all over that Nazi alright. Besides the inventive poses and the many wrinkles (especially in the shot where he's got his hands up in front of SNAFU), he's knashing his teeth the entire time. Scribner always had the characters knash their teeth whenever they were angry. He must have expressed anger that way in real life.

Old-days cell artists get WAY too much flack for "sloppy" cleanups. They're drawing on a surface that is both slicker and more stubborn than paper, and they're controlling a semi-viscous fluid at the same time as they're trying to control the drawings. On top of that, they are attempting to painstakingly replicate a drawing which, however controlled, was wild, loose and spontaneous in the hand of the animator, sometimes even consisting of two or more aborted shots at a pose drifting around underneath a slightly-better-articulated finished one. And they're probably being made to work faster than the animators, since everybody assumes their part of the job requires next to no thought anyway.

Excellent frames, John! But I'd like to pose a question to you. Could you compose a working definition of "design" in terms of animation and why do you believe its important for artists to acknowledge. This may sound stupid but I'm often confused by the relevance of it and needed some clarification. Thanks

Pete Emslie Feb 6th 2009; "The Dark Ages were extremely conservative times, and I lament that we are now beginning to repeat them as our recently departed hunger for skill, knowledge, curiosity and invention is being replaced by ignorance, amateurism, fear and imitation."Not sure if my original post came through so I'll reiterate!Sorry about being off subject but I am new to Johns Blog and have been reading through years of posts and have just come accross this one! I have to say I agree whole heartedly with Petes comments. If you do not agree I invite you to come to Australia and see the crap we pour out through our so called "Talent SHows" which are judged by the least talented MORONS you have ever seen! Lets get together and create a production company that uses only genuine talent!Devolution is upon us!